After the Football Supporters Federation led ‘Share the TV Wealth’ demo and letter to the 20 Premier League clubs addressing their 5.6 billion TV deal in 2016, the Premier League clubs have agreed to share at least £1bn of their record UK TV rights deal with lower league sides and grassroots football.
There will be new funds earmarked to help ease costs for match-going supporters. Details of which, we await with interest and hope supporters will be involved in the decision of how it will be spent. A view echoed by the FSF website .
“We look forward to continued dialogue between fans, clubs and the Premier League as to how this money is spent. Supporters must be at the heart of the decision making process; every club’s fan base has different needs, and addressing these requires proper dialogue,” said the FSF.
Also, clubs have also agreed to pay all full-time staff the living wage by the start of the 2016-17 season, which is good news to those at Villa, especially the part-time workers that currently fall outside of the living wage.
The Premier League sold the live TV rights for £5.136bn to Sky and BT for three years from 2016.
Donations have risen 40% from £700m, despite the TV rights going up by 70% from £3bn. Still it’s a move in the right direction.
Currently the largest proportion of the ‘donations’ go into parachute payments from the Premier League to relegated teams, but the member clubs agreed to invest in five key areas:
- Grassroots facilities
- Participation
- Fan engagement and match day experience
- Solidarity with lower leagues
- Supporting disadvantaged groups
Fingers-crossed that Villa can avoid relegation this season (and next!) to get a piece of the pie, and lets hope the redistribution of monies to fans is done constructively and progressive.
UTV
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